My View: Tutoring is not just for students who are falling behind

Saturday

Jul 27, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 27, 2013 at 4:32 PM

As summer comes to a close for students in the weeks ahead, parents are prepping their kids for the upcoming school year. They’re purchasing school supplies, buying new gym shoes and attending registration. But there’s another kind of prep work that can also be in the works right now — tutoring.

Ron Liu

As summer comes to a close for students in the weeks ahead, parents are prepping their kids for the upcoming school year.

They’re purchasing school supplies, buying new gym shoes and attending registration. But there’s another kind of prep work that can also be in the works right now — tutoring.

While many students enrolled in a tutoring program are experiencing difficulties in school, many others are already doing well, and they choose to enroll in tutoring programs to further excel their academic achievements.

With intense competition for college placement and the lack of job opportunities, tutorial services are not only being used for remediation, but also as a tool for students to gain a competitive edge.

At Huntington Learning Center in Rockford, most of our students take our ACT exam prep program. Prepping kids for that important test can make a huge difference — scores show an increase of four points higher on ACT scores after students have taken the course.

We all realize the importance of a student’s high school GPA when it comes to applying to colleges or obtaining a good job. A student’s grade point average is the result of four years of hard work.

But even for students with good study habits, a good GPA cannot always be assured. Why? Because sometimes a student has to take courses that he or she may not be particularly interested in or take courses from a teacher who doesn’t seem able to connect with the student.

That’s when schools may suggest tutoring to help bolster study efforts and boost a student’s GPA. Tutorial help can also allow a student to take more challenging AP courses, and these may be very helpful to your child in getting into the college of his or her choice.

Many schools are offering tutorial services, too. Generally, the class size in most schools limit a teacher’s ability to give individualized attention to students. Schools are remedying that problem by setting up group tutoring sessions, which often give kids a jump start or help bring them up to speed.

See if your school offers this option.

If more individualized help is needed, investigate an independent tutorial program to fill the gap. These types of programs give each student the opportunity to interface with the teacher to work on specific areas where he or she encounters difficulty.

Similarly, the progress of the student dictates how fast the teacher covers the curriculum, and no time is wasted in repeating materials that the student has already mastered.

With the school year approaching, parents may want to look at tutorial services in a slightly different light, as not exclusively remedial but, instead, a chance to take a step further ahead than students would have been able to take on their own.

It’s also a good idea to be ready for any difficulties or provide extra support before a student is desperate for it.

I always remind parents that education is the only investment that pays a lifetime dividend. Tutorial services may help students obtain a scholarship and/or find suitable employment, which will significantly alleviate the financial reliance on their parents in years to come.

Ron Liu is the regional director of Huntington Learning Center in Rockford.